The six selected projects include innovative approaches to replacing animals used in experiments with cell cultures as well as new strategies to improve animal welfare and reduce the number of living animals necessary. The goal of all projects is to replace, reduce or improve animal experiments at Swiss research institutions and thereby increase animal welfare, while at the same time generating results that can be more reliable and reproducible and more relevant to humans.  

Eawag scientist Kristin Schirmer is awarded CHF 251 000 for her project. She plans to eliminate the need of the last animal-derived component in her ISO-certified toxicity test with fish cells and move to a completely animal-free testing. She plans to replace the fetal calf serum currently required for cell growth with a medium that does not contain animal components.